Free Star Crusades Nexus: Book 03 - Heroes of Helios by Michael G. Thomas

small lights far above them.
    “The red machine. It keeps demanding the same thing over and over.”
    “Helios?”
    Spartan nodded.
    “Yeah, that piece of metal garbage wants me to give the place up. You remember what the thing said to me last time.”
    Khan smiled, recalling Spartan’s description of the dialogue and the bloody fight that had nearly destroyed one of the machines.
    “They want you to persuade the Helions and the T’Kari that the machines don’t need the Black Rift because they are already able to access the Helion system.”
    “Exactly. They will send every ship they have left, including probably this one. They will strike Helios as a diversion to weaken the defenses around the Black rift. Then they will strike and secure the Rift. Once they control it, they can take their time before returning to finish what they started.”
    Khan looked confused.
    “So what though? How does that help us?”
    Spartan smiled.
    “I think they’re scared. The machines, you know, these leadership soldiers like the red one. I think they are the real power, and they want to get home. Think about it. They’ve been trapped out here for centuries. No matter how well they succeed, their numbers are always falling. Their race is ancient and decaying.”
    Khan shook his head. He clearly disagreed.
    “How do you know that?”
    “When they interrogate us, when they reach into their minds, I can get glimpses of their own. I’ve seen their world. It is a shell. Stripped of resources and inhabited by an aged race of these things. Do you know what I think?”
    Khan roared with laughter and shook uncontrollably for a while.
    “Know what you think? I doubt even you know that!”
    Spartan could see his point. The torture had certainly done its work both physically and mentally. He knew they had extracted information from him on Alliance tactics, equipment, and ship disposition. Even so, he’d fought them hard and long, and he lied and fed disinformation as often as he could. The images they’d shown him either deliberately or by accident were now merging with his own memories to a degree that made it almost impossible for him to tell one from the other. He leaned in close as though he expected somebody to be eavesdropping.
    “Khan, I say we make a deal. It won’t be easy, and I’ll need to let them twist the knife in a bit deeper before I break.”
    Khan looked confused and glanced at the door before looking back.
    “You’ll give them Helios?”
    Spartan clenched his fist and then rammed his hand, striking at Khan. The Jötnar might have been tired, but his strength and reactions were not in doubt. He stopped the fist with an open hand and gripped his fingers around Spartan’s fist.
    “What do you think?”
    Khan nodded with barely concealed joy.
    “Now, they come each day. Make sure you’re ready. We’ll make them pay, Khan. They’ll pay for every day they’ve spent torturing us.”
    They think they’ll get Helios. Instead, I’ll leave their own world in ruin!

    * * *

    The large screen glowed with a hint of light blue that filled the dark chamber. Inside stood three of the Biomech machines and a single human. Unlike the Biomechs that had fought in the Great Uprising, these were more machine than creature. Their exteriors were completely artificial and protected like the shell of a beetle. Overlapping plates of plastic and rare metals gave thick-layered protection to the vulnerable parts inside. Each was different, but all three were bipedal, strong, and big. The man stood with his long flowing robes gathered about his body and an Echidna brooch on his chest, a design that embodied a perfect merger of man, alien, and machine. The actual shape was made in the image of a mechanical serpent merged with the torso of a woman and made from a single piece of gleaming silver metal. On the display was a ceiling mounted feed of the prison chamber where Spartan and Khan were speaking.
    “Typhon, this will work?” asked the